


Sovereignty

by themantlingdark



Series: Sovereignty [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 19:40:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16898727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themantlingdark/pseuds/themantlingdark
Summary: Please pretend commenting is disabled, and please don't repost or distribute my work.





	Sovereignty

1 Coronation

 

Heimdall is the oldest god. To his own age, he can add the span of every life that has been lived in every realm for the last two thousand five hundred years. Men, gods, giants, mothers, brothers, sisters, and beasts. And so he is older even than Odin. Only Frigga, who had seen all that was set in the future, knew more, and it is in her judgment that Heimdall trusts. She was cautious with her words, but the few occasions on which she let her mind be known stick in Heimdall's memory like burs.

When Loki's body rises on Svartalfheim and the trickster makes his way home to Asgard in the glamour of a guard, Heimdall says nothing.

It's the Guardian's gamble.

But he knows the odds.

Loki's first order of business is to see Odin about what's to be done with his own corpse.

Odin makes no offer of a burial.

It's exactly what Loki is expecting. The anguish that accompanies it, however, is a complete surprise.

“And what of Thor?” Loki asks, in the unwavering voice of his glamour.

“This is the second time he has thus defied me. I will not repeat my mistake of leniency. Upon his return or capture, he and his accomplices are to be brought before me and executed for treason.”

Loki's sword goes through Odin's throat without the slightest hesitation.

A cheerful guard grants Thor's baffled friends their freedom.

When Thor comes home and asks about Loki's body, Loki wears Odin's guise and escorts Thor to the boathouse that shelters the small funeral ship.

Loki can't resist taking his place on the bier and basking in his brother's grief.

The illusion of Odin leaves the room and Thor stands and stares in the shadows by the door.

The wooden planks creak under his feet. The water hidden below murmurs softly.

Thor brushes the stern with the tips of his fingers and then takes the last few steps up to the bow. The boat rocks gently as he steps into it.

Loki hears the whisper of a knife against its sheath and then the grainy sound of hair being shorn.

Thor tucks a lock of blond into Loki's limp fingers and reaches to steal a matching bunch of black from his brother's head, putting it in a pocket to make into a braid later.

“I can feel your seidr everywhere I go,” Thor murmurs. “Like a ghost. I wish I had your way with magic. Perhaps then I could speak to you still. I'll learn, though.”

Loki hears Thor shifting and a shadow flickers across his closed eyelids. He can feel the warmth of Thor's skin hovering over him for a second as Thor hesitates, shy somehow, before setting his thumb in front of Loki's left ear and curling his fingers around the back of Loki's neck.

Thor's breath shudders out over Loki's face in a sob that was meant to be a sigh.

“I'm sorry I didn't get there fast enough,” Thor whispers. “That I've no skill at healing. I'd only just gotten you back... It never crossed my mind that I could lose you again. We're not meant to outlive our little brothers... and I've done it twice now.”

The words are wet, halting, and broken against Loki's skin. Thor's voice fades and staggers as it struggles past his lips, too thick to be borne by air. Tears tickle where they fall on Loki's face.

“Look at you,” Thor marvels, and brushes the edge of Loki's jaw with a rough thumb. “Fresh as falling rain.”

Loki is beautiful. He would have it no other way. Loose glossy curls frame his glowing face. There's a hint of roses in his cheeks to complement his lips. His armor is gold and gleaming. Thor assumes it's Odin's handiwork.

“I have to watch you burn,” Thor chokes, and drops his forehead to Loki's chin, shaking both of their heads with his disbelief.

Thor rests a moment, bathing in the scent of his brother's skin and filling the hollow at the base of Loki's throat with hot tears.

He sits up and takes deep breaths, waiting for the tightness in his throat to loosen enough to let him speak again.

“Be joyful,” Thor breathes, and pecks a kiss onto Loki's lips. “And impish. Come find me when I fall, love, and don't let me linger here too long.”

Thor squeezes Loki's shoulder and pats Loki's left cheek before stepping out of the boat and walking back down the dock.

The footfalls sound uneven to Loki's ears.

Loki leaves the glamour of his corpse behind him on the bier and makes his way back to the palace with a spring in his step.

Loki's funeral is not as well attended as Thor would like, but it's better attended than he expected.

He wants the night sky to glow with offered orbs as it did for his mother.

Thor calls lightning and the bright veins lace the sky while the thunder sets all the realm trembling.

After the feast, Loki puts Odin's image to bed and follows Thor through the palace.

Thor locks the door to the hall and then goes to Loki's room.

When Thor shuts the door behind him, the room is dark, and his footsteps seem to fill the space. He finds the flints and lights the torches, but regrets it when they only serve to show him that he is alone.

Thor touches the bed with what Loki can only call reverence, carefully smoothing the coverlet.

And he keeps his promise: he goes to Loki's bookshelf and takes down a tome on healing.

Thor reads until sunrise.

Asgard feels empty to Thor. His brother and mother are dead and his father is a stranger. His roots have withered and left him to the wind. He decides to drift for a bit and see if he might at least be able to make himself useful.

The relief that courses through Thor when Odin accepts his refusal of the throne is a feeling unlike any he has known before.

He borrows more of his brother's books and visits his friends on Midgard.

Jane is glad to see him and quick to offer comfort. As soon as there is air between their lips, she tells Thor there's a creature on the realm that was trapped after the alignment ended.

Thor aids in mending the mess that he and Malekith made and helps his friends to keep the peace on their volatile world.

Loki is delighted.

This is everything he could have hoped for.

Thor is out of harm's way.

Thor doesn't want the throne.

Thor is willingly studying seidr.

And Thor loves him.

Loki gives Odin a proper - albeit warded – funeral, not wanting to risk angering Odin's spirit.

Afterward, he continues to take the face of his not-father and uses it to every imaginable advantage.

Loki knows worthy souls when he sees them.

He sets Sif on the throne when he wants to get away.

She wants nothing more than that.

Which is not to say that there is nothing more that she wants, but Loki knows that if she had to choose between Thor and Asgard, Sif would pick the latter.

Loki finds that unforgivable, and grants her greatest wish as a punishment.

When Loki goes to visit The Collector, he finds that Tivan now has two additional gems. And Tivan can hardly refuse the Allfather's request – Loki's ruse - for entrance to the vault to see that his own stone is being well kept and is remaining dormant.

Once he's inside, Loki steals all three stones, leaving lovely facsimiles in their place.

The final gems are not so peacefully acquired, but Loki gets them anyway.

He extracts their cores and sets the six jewels in a simple crown of gold.

Thor comes back to Asgard for more books.

In Loki's room he carefully replaces the ones he has already read and puzzles through which ones would best serve him next. Most are far too advanced. Thor will have to give his brother's bookcases a break and instead better acquaint himself with the contents of Asgard's libraries. He's about to leave when an odd binding catches his eye.

Hand stitched and enormous.

It's lying on its side.

Thor hefts it carefully and sets it on the table. He holds his breath and spreads his fingers wide to support the cover as he opens it. But the paper inside is bright and new by the standards of Loki's collection. Sturdy and still flexible.

It's an encyclopedia of flowers.

Every bloom in the realms, lovingly rendered and elaborately described. Their properties - in medicines, potions, and poisons - and their many meanings are listed beneath their images.

Loki's handiwork.

Thor pulls the lock of hair he took from Loki's head out of his pocket, bound into a tiny braid now, and paints his lips with the loose strands at its tips, thoughtlessly tickling himself as he turns the pages.

Sometimes he sets the plait beneath his nose and purses his lips to hold it in place - like a child making himself a mustache – while he breathes in the perfume of his brother's hair.

Thor pores over the paintings all night.

He's still not a tenth of the way through the book when the sun rises, but by its light he can better appreciate the beauty of the watercolors and the mellifluous grace of the penmanship.

“It's yours if you want it,” Loki says. “I know them all by heart.”

Thor goes still and feels the fur on his arms shifting as his skin tightens to set his hair on end.

When he gathers the nerve to look over his shoulder he finds his brother behind him, sitting on the bed.

Thor stands slowly, still rubbing the lock of hair between the fingers of his left hand while his right finds its way to Mjolnir's handle.

“It's me,” Loki soothes. “Not an illusion or a spirit.”

But Thor is not soothed, and his cheeks are the wrong color.

“You did it for yourself,” Thor breathes, and closes his eyes. “I'm the fool.”

Loki rises and walks toward his startled brother.

Thor backs away until the table blocks him.

“This is my own fault,” Thor murmurs, and Loki sees Thor's tears flash on their way to the floor. “I wished to see you again. But I never dreamt you could be this cruel.”

Loki's mouth falls open, at a loss.

“I suppose you've killed my father,” Thor says.

“To keep him from killing you first.”

Thor's face has changed. His eyes have somehow shuttered themselves without dropping their lids. No longer a set of blue peepholes into his heart and soul. Mirrors now at best. They look through Loki as though he really is a ghost.

Loki feels uneasy.

Thor lets himself out onto the balcony and spins Mjolnir before vanishing into the sky.

Loki sets the crown on his head and follows.

They land on the Bifrost at the same time. Loki is blocking Thor's path to the portals. Thor's stomach is already in knots when he hears the gems - the cacophony of their voices in his head, muddying Mjolnir's lovely song. And somehow Thor knows every last one of those ugly stones, though he's only held two of them.

Thor is sweating. There's a weight in his belly and a tremor in his legs. He's only felt this way twice before: once when his father stripped him of power and threw him down into the dust of a Midgardian desert; and again when Loki let go of Gungnir and dropped into the abyss.

Loki can see heartbreak on his brother's face: flared nostrils, wet eyes, pinched lips, and a set jaw.

It cuts Loki to the quick, but he's going to put them both out of their misery as best he can.

Loki closes his eyes.

Thor can hear the infinity gems screaming from their perch on Loki's skull.

 

2 Abdication

 

Thor feels like he is the eye of a vast storm; the axis around which all the realms revolve. His vision is a rapidly flickering blur. Only his brother's image remains clear beside him – eyes closed tight and jaw clenched.

And then everything is still.

Thor takes a careful breath.

All looks normal.

It takes Thor three seconds to remember that that should not be the case.

This is the old Bifrost. The one Thor destroyed.

Thor scrambles to its edge and bends to vomit bile into the sea.

Loki is looking off into space and weeping.

It worked, technically.

He reversed time.

It's a month before Thor's coronation.

Loki has never gone to Jotunheim and now he never will.

But Loki remembers everything.

He has to. He couldn't risk sending himself backward for fear of making all the same mistakes.

He'll be haunted by his memories.

He shakes himself out of his stupor and supposes that reality will scatter the old days away just as daylight does bad dreams.

Loki looks to his brother, who is standing by the edge of the bridge and staring at him.

And it takes Loki a moment to realize that Thor looks the same.

Hair long.

Face grim.

Heart broken.

“No,” Loki breathes. “Not you, too.”

“Ask her if she suffered,” Thor says. “She'll know what you've done.”

Loki doesn't believe his brother.

Until he sees his mother's face.

Her mouth a tight line.

Her brow slightly furrowed.

Eyes shining.

But she opens her arms to him all the same and Loki runs into her embrace. His armor melts away as he sheds it with seidr.

Frigga can feel her son's heart hammering against her breast.

She rubs his shoulders and shushes him. Kisses his neck and soothes him.

“I couldn't send him back,” Loki whispers. “He flew off into the woods.”

“Mjolnir,” Frigga says.

“What about her?”

“She anchored him.”

“How?”

Frigga pats Loki's shoulder blades and takes his arm, leading him toward her rooms.

“Midgard makes it one word – spacetime,” Frigga says. “Space and time are inseparable. You cannot move Mjolnir through space-”

“So I cannot move her through time... and she lives at Thor's hip.”

Frigga nods.

Thor doesn't come back to the palace.

He hates his brother for this.

For dragging him back here.

For making it so that his mother can die again... and his father, too.

And, above all, Thor hates hating his brother.

Odin wonders where his heir has gone when he's only weeks from being crowned.

The king seeks Loki in his room. Loki stiffens at seeing the man he killed coming toward him.

“Where is your brother?” Odin asks.

“He isn't ready for the throne,” Loki says.

Odin stares, taking in Loki's long hair and hard face.

“You're older,” Odin whispers. “What have you done to yourself?”

“That tale would take years to tell.”

Thor doesn't need to see his father's face to know that relief has softened its features. That Odin is glad that Thor will not yet become king.

Thor wishes he could thank his father for the banishment that will never happen.

Thor stays in the woods. There's no sense in running. Loki can get to him no matter where he goes.

He can't bring himself to live this lie, though his heart longs to let him do it.

He wants to see his mother again.

To see his father as he remembers him - before the king's mind was taken by the madness of grief.

But it's all just another of Loki's tricks, and Thor is finished with falling for them.

Thor's mother seeks him out anyway.

She finds him by a stream that winds through a wood, sunlight filtering through branches and brushing his skin.

There's a buried bit of mountain that sticks up through the ground and its peak has a chip in it that forms a shallow cave. He used to come here when he was young.

Thor's clothes, cape, and armor are folded and stacked on the stone floor of his small shelter. He called them here only to realize he had no desire for protection, and that they couldn't offer him any against his brother anyway.

Thor himself is lying on the springy moss that lines the riverbank, trailing his fingers through the water and tempting the lips of fish. Mjolnir is tied to the belt that rings Thor's otherwise-naked waist. The hammer looks like a tail behind him.

Thor can feel his mother's magic, warm and dark at his back.

“Are you avoiding me?” Frigga teases, and Thor closes his eyes tight.

“No, never,” Thor breathes.

“Then why do you hide in the woods like a beast?”

“You know why,” Thor sighs. “He's pulled all the realms into this lie of his.”

“Would it not be wisdom to let yourself enjoy what is given?”

“Anything I allow myself to have is merely something else for him to take away... I don't know what he wants,” Thor murmurs. “And I don't think he knows either.”

Frigga hums, arranges her skirt, and sits on Thor's hip.

Thor huffs a laugh and turns his head to look at her. His face splits into a grin and his eyes leak tears that catch in his beard. He offers his hand and she presses it between both of hers.

“I've lost you once already,” Thor whispers. “Lost him twice... maybe three times. Or perhaps just the once, but forever, in some way.”

“You two are more alike than you think,” she says. “Both so stubborn. There are some lessons that even he must learn the hard way.”

Thor nods.

“You have always been the stronger,” Frigga says, and Thor's brow furrows. “Which is not to say that he is weaker,” she adds. “But pain wears on him in a different way. He clings to it. You've always known to let it go.”

Thor nods again.

“The realms are no less real for being a lie,” she says, pinching Thor's flank as proof. “Nor am I, for that matter.”

Thor narrows his eyes playfully, then drags Frigga down onto the moss in front of him and hugs her tight while she shakes her head and smacks him halfheartedly.

“I've missed you,” he breathes, and buries his face in her neck.

Her body quakes in his arms and he fears that he has wounded her heart, but it's unfounded.

“If some poor hunter blunders through and sees us there will be a scandal,” she giggles.

Thor vibrates with laughter and merely holds her tighter.

She visits him again the next morning and they walk in easy silence while the first rays of the sun filter through the tree trunks to paint orange stripes on their skin. They sit on a wide flat stone at the river's edge, letting their legs dangle into the water below and pretending that the current is washing away every step they've ever taken and preventing any steps they would take. That they live only here, with their toes in the water.

Thor asks no questions. Begs no forgiveness. Makes no apologies.

And Frigga doesn't have to tell him how grateful she is for that.

Thor has grown more like his mother over the years. Neither Thor nor Odin saw that coming. Loki prayed for it.

Weeks pass and still Frigga comes, as constant as the sunrise itself, to see her son where he waits in the woods.

And she marvels at Thor's strength: every day he lets her break his heart with love that's already lost, but he never asks her not to return the next morning.

He doesn't want to be spared.

They both know this is all they have. And they're both strong enough to bear it.

Spring turns hot and the days grow long.

The morning stretches farther and gives Thor more time with his mother.

“The ground is dry,” she says, sitting beside him on the bank. “My roses are wilting.”

Thor snorts and shakes his head. He hasn't been bringing extra rain the way he normally would during dry spells. He won't play Loki's game.

But Frigga's games are another story.

Thor wades to the center of the stream and holds out a hand.

Frigga huffs and shakes her head no.

Thor smirks and begins flicking water in her direction, a little further with each toss of his hand, threatening.

Frigga raises her eyebrows and bites her lip in warning.

Rain falls over the stream, sending rings rippling over its surface briefly before they're erased by the current.

Frigga jumps to her feet and runs back to seek shelter in the tiny cave.

Thor tuts softly and the rain stops. He peers into the gloom of the cavern until he finds his mother's gaze, then holds out his hand again and curls his fingers expectantly.

Frigga rolls her eyes and groans, but she's unhooking the back of her dress. She folds it carefully and sets it on Thor's cape before pulling the pins from her hair and letting them fall to the stone floor with a ringing clatter.

And then she's laughing and shaking her head as she steps down into the stream.

She takes Thor's offered hand and they sink into the creek to float on their backs and listen to the crackle of the rain and the drumming of distant thunder.

The raindrops never fall into Frigga's eyes.

And she understands her son better. It is so rare that the realms grant her any surprises. She's delighted. Her visions show her what will happen, but they can't tell her how the future will feel.

She has always known of Thor's magic, but she's never had time to dwell on it – or in it - until now.

His seidr is not a thing of spells the way it is for her – and for Loki and Odin. It's almost as if Thor himself is the spell.

A storm with the heart of a star, she muses.

My son.

No wonder he can't bear a cage.

They swim every day.

Frigga comes and Thor greets her with an embrace and then reaches up to thread his fingers through her hair until he finds the pins and pulls them out, sending her tresses tumbling down over her shoulders.

He used to do this as a boy. In the morning, he would sit and watch as she put her hair up in plaits and he would scowl at the waste: he couldn't run his fingers through buns and braids. And Thor would frown at her hair all day. And then he'd stare at his mother during supper as he waited for her to finish her wine. And, once she had, she would set down her glass, kiss the king, and nod at Thor. And then Thor would be at her hip with her hand held in his and he'd all but drag her back to her rooms. Frigga would scoop him up and then he'd furrow his brow and puzzle out all the ribbons, bows, pins, plaits, and knots until her hair was spilling down her back. And he'd hum and run his fingers through it and brush the ends over his face as she told him a story.

Now he stands behind her to hold her hair out of the way while she unhooks her gown. He marvels at the weight of all the shimmering blond strands.

“If you pulled the pins after I took the dress off, you wouldn't have to stand there doing their work,” Frigga notes.

“Aye,” Thor says. “But if I pulled the pins after you took the dress off, I wouldn't get to stand here doing their work.”

Frigga snorts and shakes her head before walking toward the stream.

Thor watches her curls slip through his fingers.

They beach themselves on the bank and spy on the frogs that sit on slippery stones, thinking themselves invisible.

Dragonflies come to perch on Thor's hair until he's wearing a sparkling crown of the delicate insects. Frigga smiles to herself when Thor crosses his eyes to stare at the tiny creature that has alighted on the tip of his nose.

Loki spends every afternoon talking with his mother, trying to find a loophole that will let her tell him what's going to happen – what he should do.

It doesn't work.

“How is Thor?” he asks, after Frigga has ignored another of his questions.

She cocks an eyebrow.

“You overestimate him,” she says, softly, and Loki goes still. “Thor is strong. He can bear much. But he has his limits... and to learn where they lie would break both of you. You are nearly at their border. Tread carefully, Loki.”

Loki sits for an hour while his book sprawls, neglected, on his lap.

“You underestimate him, too,” Frigga murmurs. “Your brother is no fool.”

Loki kisses his mother's cheek, rises, bows, and takes his leave.

Thor feels Loki's seidr trickling through the woods before he hears his brother's footsteps, and he hears the hum of the gems from the crown on Loki's head. Loki has enchanted the thing to make it invisible, but Thor knows it's there.

Thor is flat on his back with Mjolnir lying over his heart when Loki finds him.

“Are you avoiding me?” Loki asks, voice breezy.

“Aye,” Thor says.

“Why?”

“I'm finished. I'll not play your games. Not take part in tests I'm meant to fail. I'm not a prize. Not a pawn. Not a battle to be won. Not a puzzle to be solved. Not a lofty thing to be brought low. Not a king or a god. I'm an animal like any other.”

“Did Midgard put that fool thought in your head? Do not deceive yourself, brother - you're a god, more so than any other I've ever seen.”

“I'm a fool,” Thor answers.

"Mother says you're no such thing."

“Of course she does – she's my mother.”

He said “my mother,” Loki realizes, with a start. Not ours.

Loki didn't mind it when Thor claimed Odin as his own.

But to take sole possession of Frigga.

Loki realizes he has been disowned.

His blood stutters in his veins.

“Am I not your brother?” Loki breathes.

“You said yourself that you are not and never were.”

“I call you brother constantly.”

“You sneer it,” Thor counters. “It's a taunt. A curse.”

“We were raised together,” Loki says, and hears his brother's voice in his head.

Thor barks a bitter laugh.

“You say I'm your brother. You say I never was. The only constant is that you are a liar.”

The sight of Thor's bare skin is blurred by Loki's tears.

Loki tips his head up to the sky to let them leak out the corners of his eyes while he takes slow breaths to brake his heart.

“What, exactly, is it that you're doing out here?” Loki asks, but his voice is audibly shaking.

“Waiting,” Thor says.

“For what?”

“For death.”

“What are you talking about?” Loki whispers, looking back down at his brother.

“I'm not eating. Not drinking. It will still take centuries, I know, but I'm not pressed for time.”

“Why?” Loki asks. “Have you gone mad? How can you resist this? How can you be so ungrateful? We're back home.”

“We have no home here. I'll not live a lie. And the Norns will punish you for this, Loki. I don't wish to watch. I've seen enough.”

“I'll bring you back from death,” Loki shrugs.

Thor laughs.

“You know you cannot. To move me, you must move Mjolnir. And so my life only marches forward.”

Loki leaves.

He seeks Frigga again and finds her in a small library reading old poems.

“Do you know what he's doing out there?” Loki barks.

She tilts her head and widens her eyes.

“Sorry," Loki sighs. "Of course you do."

Loki sags into a chair and plays with his fingers.

“Can't you go talk some sense into him?” Loki murmurs.

“His sense is sound,” Frigga says, and returns to her reading.

Loki's stomach sours.

It feels like something rotten has burst inside him and its poison is now boiling through his veins.

He spends the evening in the bath being ill.

Something shifted in the realms overnight. Thor felt it. Like they all jolted, much as a dreamer does when his sleeping foot slips and he thinks he's falling.

Loki's grip is failing.

Thor is sitting cross-legged on the bank of the river when Frigga finds him. His shoulders sag but he pulls them up when he sees her coming. The corners of his mouth, however, are too heavy to hold aloft for very long.

The queen has a basket in one hand and a bundle of lilies in the other. Thor knows what's in the basket, but he isn't sure what the flowers are for.

His mother has plans for him.

The surprise is a pleasant one.

When Frigga is finished giving Thor her gifts, Thor shakes out his clothes and dresses for the first time in months. Then he offers his arm to his mother and they walk through the woods while the birds and insects sing around them.

At the heart of the forest they stop to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree. Tiny flowers have sprouted where soil and seeds have collected in the furrows of the bark.

“We'll be gone by morning,” Thor says.

Frigga smiles, pushes Thor's hair off of his face, and then holds her son while he weeps.

When he calms, Frigga squeezes his hand, then takes his chin and tips it up toward her.

“Would you fly me home?” she says.

Thor nods, shaking the last of his tears from his cheeks.

They make their way to a clearing.

Frigga loops her arms around Thor's neck while he hooks his left around her waist and hefts the hammer with his right.

He opts to go the wrong way and correct his course later. He's in no hurry.

Frigga laughs into his neck.

They haven't done this in centuries.

They both love looking up and seeing nothing but sky ahead as the air rushes over their faces.

Their hair is wild when Thor sets them down on Frigga's balcony.

She still has her arms around his neck and his fingers are splayed over the small of her back.

A hundred words vie for breath on the tip of Thor's tongue, but he keeps them behind his teeth.

Frigga beams at him with tears on her cheeks, then kisses the tip of his nose and disappears into the darkness of her room.

Thor flies to the Bifrost. All of his messes seem to start here. He's hopeful that this time they can finally end.

“Heimdall,” Thor says, and bows.

Heimdall saw the brothers appear on the bridge months ago. And he noticed that they looked years older than they had when, at the same instant, they vanished from their rooms.

He did the math.

“I think it would be best if you were to move farther up the bridge,” Thor admits. “Perhaps into the city itself.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Heimdall says, chuckling softly. “But I would rather send you as far on your way as I am able so that you will know the way back.”

Thor smiles and nods.

“Thank you.”

Thor waits. Loki always spends the afternoons with their mother. Thor supposes today will be no different.

Loki finally appears at sunset.

The brothers stare as though into mirrors at faces tight with tears that want to be shed. The light from the Bifrost flickers on the undersides of their jaws.

“Why could you not let me have this?” Loki asks, quietly. “Why could you not play along?”

Thor hadn't planned on responding to any of Loki's questions. Silence is safer. But now it feels childish not to speak.

“The realms are not a game,” Thor answers.

“Why do you resist this power? We are gods. This is our nature.”

“Is that what you think of me?” Thor asks, eyes wet. “I had feared that I didn't know you – didn't know what you wanted. But I see that you don't know me either... so we're equal... you said you wanted that once. I needn't feel so guilty now.”

“What is it that you want, Thor?” Loki says.

“Permanence.”

“Change is the only constant, brother. Even your mortals say so.”

“I don't want things unchanging,” Thor says, shaking his head. “I want the changes to stick. I want meaning. Consequences. I want lessons learned. I want wounds that leave scars. Sacrifices that mean something. Loss. Gain. Aging and failing and falling and death.”

Loki's nostrils flare at the last word and the muscles in his jaw jump. He takes off the crown and removes the spell that conceals it.

It's a surprisingly simple thing: a plain band of gold with the stones set around it at even intervals.

“If you destroy the stones I can't protect you,” Loki murmurs, and Thor huffs a sad laugh.

“I don't want to be protected from life. I want to live it. I want to die.”

Loki's face tightens. He hands the crown to Thor.

“Take my memories at least,” Loki whispers, wide eyes staring into Thor's own. “Spare me from my past and shield me from the future.”

Thor shakes his head no.

“You will have learned nothing. You'll make all your mistakes again. You will be where you now stand. It's a trap.”

“Then keep the crown,” Loki urges.

“Why?”

“To mend my future missteps.”

“What are you talking about?” Thor sighs, and Loki drops his gaze.

“There is no mention of us in Asgard's libraries,” Loki murmurs. “No trace of us on any scroll in any realm save Midgard. And there they say I bring about your death... and the end of all the realms.”

“Well, you've killed me,” Thor says. “And I'm still here. They also say I lost Mjolnir to a Jotun named Thrym after I spent the night in your bed.”

Loki's head snaps up.

“And I did lose Mjolnir,” Thor continues. “But it was because I was hating the Jotnar, not loving one. Those tales are are not prophesies, Loki... but perhaps there is a lesson in them: powerful objects have a way of slipping through one's fingers. This crown - these stones – we will never be safe while they exist.”

Loki can't argue with that.

Thor sets the crown on his own head and then pulls Loki tight against him.

Loki's arms wrap around his brother of their own accord.

And now it's Loki's turn to reel as the realms warp around him.

When stillness returns, Loki stands, panting and wide-eyed, while Thor slips from his embrace and turns to walk up into the golden dome at the end of the bridge.

Loki follows at his brother's heels as if in a trance.

“The Bifrost can only take you so far,” Heimdall says, and each sibling catches the sadness in his low voice. “The crown will make the rest of the journey easy, though you must take care not to get too close. Mjolnir can bring you back, but it will require all of your strength and patience. I shall leave the gate open for you, Odinson.”

Thor smiles at this.

Loki is at a loss. He isn't sure what the other gods intend.

Thor nods at Heimdall and Heimdall slams the sword home. A portal opens and Thor steps through without a glance back or a goodbye.

And, true to his word, Heimdall leaves the gateway open.

“What has he done?” Loki asks, still staring into the swirling glow of the open door.

“He's going to throw the gems into a black hole,” Heimdall says, and then knocks Loki to the floor when Loki tries to leap into the portal. “You cannot mend this, Trickster. But you could, for once, refrain from making it worse.”

3 Restoration

 

The chill of space hits Thor's skin and he stops breathing. He's moving fast, having been flung from the Bifrost. He stops himself with the crown and turns to memorize the stars behind him in the hope that he'll be able to find his way back if he has the chance.

He makes his way toward his target in increments, going first to the vast star that is being devoured by its invisible neighbor. After that he inches onward toward the black hole with his cape held out in front of him and his hammer held behind him. He feels like he's going to be torn in two and stretched out like wool on a spinning wheel.

Thor creeps forward for days at a snail's pace while gravity tries to tear him apart.

And then half of his cape disappears.

He stops.

He says farewell to the realms now, in case there is no later.

And then he takes off the crown.

And he laughs.

He still isn't moving.

Mjolnir is in his hand, hanging in space where Thor wants her. Not even the black hole has the strength to bend her to its will.

Thor feeds the crown into the darkness, turns, and spins his hammer.

Loki remains on the Bifrost and demands a running commentary from Heimdall.

The closer Thor gets to the black hole, the slower he appears to be moving.

Loki doesn't understand.

“Shouldn't he be moving faster the closer he gets?”

“If he did not bear the hammer and the crown, then he would be. But either way his image would make its way to me more and more slowly.”

Loki stares.

“It has to fight gravity, too,” Heimdall explains.

“The light?” Loki whispers, horrified.

“Aye,” Heimdall nods.

“And how far is Thor from the Bifrost?”

“About four hundred and seventy-six trillion miles.”

Loki vomits.

Jane has just finished washing dishes and is turning to dry her hands when Loki appears in her kitchen.

Her nose curves down as she pulls her lips between her teeth and her brow folds up over her pretty eyes.

Sorrow, not fear.

She slaps his face, soapy fingers slipping on his skin and leaving an outline of suds.

“You fucking asshole.”

She goes to slap him again but he stops her arm and sets it at her side.

“You'll only hurt your hand.”

“You're disgusting,” she says.

“I know,” Loki answers.

“Where's Thor?”

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

“What?”

“What can you tell me about black holes?” Loki says.

When Jane covers her face and falls to her knees, Loki's stomach turns over and he breaks out in a cold sweat.

Loki returns from his inquiries on Midgard and shifts into Odin's image as he goes to greet Sif on the throne.

She rises and he shakes his head no and then twists back into true shape.

She starts to stand again but Loki waves her off.

“Keep it,” Loki says. “You're worthy of it. You can bear it.”

She stares at him and then sighs.

“I should have known,” Sif murmurs.

“True.”

“Where is Odin?”

“Gone,” Loki says, staring straight into her eyes. “But he was dead before he fell.”

Sif says nothing more about it, for she knows Loki speaks the truth.

“Where is Thor?” she asks, instead.

“He went to destroy the infinity gems, so he's in the Pinwheel galaxy. Near a Wolf-Rayet star.”

“What?”

“He's throwing the stones into what Midgard calls a 'black hole.'”

“When will he return?”

Loki takes a deep breath and tries to will himself not to weep.

It doesn't work.

“It's difficult to say,” Loki breathes, as tears stream down his cheeks. “It seems he is roughly four hundred and seventy-six trillion miles from the Bifrost. It would take a ray of light eighty-one years to make the journey. And nothing – not even Thor - can travel faster than light.”

“How fast can he travel?” Sif asks, as she joins Loki in weeping.

“I don't know.”

Loki pesters Heimdall for information about Thor at least three times a day.

Heimdall begins every report with an account of something else that he's watching - something distracting – and then tells Loki that Thor is, as ever, moving very slowly toward the event horizon.

It's a month before Thor changes direction, though his speed is still painfully low for another week.

After that Thor slowly gains speed.

Thor tells himself he's going to throttle his little brother when he gets home.

Then he realizes he's just thought of Loki as his little brother.

He rolls his eyes at himself.

Loki didn't seem to have much fight left in him when Thor stepped through the Bifrost.

And their fights never change anything.

Thor decides he'll have to try something else if he ever gets the chance.

Gungnir is a powerful weapon, much as Mjolnir is. Full of magic. Sif prefers her sword and it is all she holds when she takes the throne while the false Odin is away.

So Loki wields the spear and treats it as an enormous wand.

He stops every incident that could conceivably draw Heimdall's attention away from Thor.

He is ruthless.

Heimdall has never seen anyone fight like this, and Heimdall has seen over two millennia of battle.

Any skirmish that has the potential to swell is ended.

Any powerful object being sought is found by Loki first and destroyed.

All the weapons being built are sabotaged.

Loki ends war.

 

Sif had always assumed that if Loki ever did such a thing it would merely be a side effect of his having ended all life.

Loki cannot bring rain, but he can bring the next best thing. He uses Gungnir for seidr-fueled bouts of pole-vaulting, launching himself high into the sky and then casting snow across the realm. It melts in Asgard's warm air and keeps the fields green.

When he sleeps he has nightmares.

That Thor never makes it back.

That Thor has already starved to death or suffocated.

That Thor's grip on the hammer has slipped and he's been pulled back into the black hole.

That Thor's corpse makes it home.

That the realms and Bifrost are in ruins by the time Thor is ready to return and he is trapped in the cold blackness of space.

That Thor comes home tomorrow, weds Jane, and never speaks to him again.

That Thor comes back in a thousand years, marries Sif, gives her plump lovely babies, and leaves Loki to rot in the dungeon like he deserves.

That he doesn't live long enough to see Thor come home.

There is nothing to slow Thor down.

He can spin and fling the hammer to increase his speed as often as he likes, so he does. The light from the Bifrost hasn't yet reached the region of space Thor inhabits, but the light from the stars that were behind it has, so Thor can still use them as a map. They could be dead for all Thor knows – burnt out centuries ago. And Thor realizes he hasn't been keeping track of time. He wonders if he should bother. He has no way of knowing what, if anything, will await him when he returns... if he makes it that far.

His arm is screaming in its socket.

And he has never known hunger and thirst like this.

Never known this emptiness in his lungs.

He thinks of Loki's fall from the Bifrost.

Not a thing he ever thought he'd understand on a visceral level, but here he is.

He wonders if he should let go and see what fate awaits him.

But that went badly for his brother, so Thor holds on.

Eventually, Thor ties a knot in his hair with his free hand. It grows about six inches a year. That's as close as he can come to a clock without counting the seconds in his head, which is unbearably tedious - he tried it for two days and then decided things were bad enough without him torturing himself.

Thor's locks are over twenty-two feet long before he can see the Bifrost. He knows he can't be more than halfway home. If he had tears left in him he would weep; his mortal friends on Midgard will be long gone by the time he reaches Asgard. He hopes Rogers and Banner are left to him.

Thor's hair grows another twenty-three feet before the roar of the Bifrost brings him home.

Loki is there waiting for him.

Thor can't hold up his own weight. He's flushed from Asgard's heat after so long in frigid space. His hair is so long Loki has to pull it in from the open portal of the Bifrost, hand over hand like rope, leaving great coils of blond on the floor.

Loki chills the room to spare Thor's skin. Thor has his eyes closed against the brightness. Loki catches Thor grimacing at every sound that reaches his ears, so he casts a spell to silence everything.

Thor is terribly thin, and so dehydrated he can't even speak. His fingers are still curled around the handle of his hammer - the muscles are unable to manage anything else. Loki has to grease the weapon to slide Thor's fist off of it, and it takes a dozen healing spells to get Thor's right arm out of the air and back down at his side.

They make their way to the palace under cover of night and glamour.

Loki carries Thor; Heimdall carries Mjolnir.

Thor is relieved to see that Heimdall looks happy and is assisting his brother: if Loki has the guardian's approval then things can't have been too bad while Thor was away. And the realm looks whole and healthy.

Loki intends to keep Thor's return quiet until Thor is well enough to share in celebrating it. He doesn't want anyone to see his brother when Thor is not entirely himself. He wants this fragile version of Thor to be a secret that belongs to him. It's bad enough that he has to share it with Heimdall.

Loki takes Thor to his own room, which is darker and cooler than Thor's and already has a great deal of protective enchantments woven around it. He casts a spell to keep Thor afloat in mid-air while he figures out what to do with his ailing brother.

He shears off Thor's beard and hair. Loki can watch Thor's health fail as he looks over the strands; thick and glossy at the ends, but brittle and dull near the roots. It should be the other way around.

Then he carefully dismantles Thor's armor. It's at least ten sizes too large now.

When Loki takes off the leathers and linens underneath, something dark falls to the floor.

He stoops to pick it up and recognizes the thing as soon as his fingers connect with it; a lock of his own hair, braided and bound. Loki sets it on a shelf on the off chance Thor wants it back later.

Loki opts to line the bath with leather, fill it with oil, and set his brother in it. The stone keeps the liquid cool while the oil soothes Thor's parched skin.

Loki sits for days holding Thor's head up with one hand and pouring cup after cup of cool water into Thor's chapped mouth with the other.

After a week they graduate to broth.

Soup follows.

Then small fruits and soft cheeses. Thor likes this combination and Loki is glad to get anything fattening into his brother.

Soon Thor can hold his head up and lift his arms a little.

Loki is beginning to wonder whether his brother can speak when Thor rasps a thank you after Loki feeds him a supper of slow roasted beef that nearly melts on his tongue.

Loki removes the spell that dulls Thor's hearing.

“What else do you need?” Loki whispers.

“I'd like to sleep.”

Loki goes to fetch a mountain of towels.

He lays them on the floor and then takes off his own clothes to keep from ruining them.

“Tell me if anything irritates your skin or makes you ache,” Loki says, and Thor nods.

Loki stoops to thread his right arm behind Thor's shoulders and his left under Thor's knees, then lifts the emaciated god with such ease it sets him weeping.

He lays Thor down on the towels and looks to Thor's face as he takes up a soft flannel cloth and begins wiping the oil from Thor's neck.

The first pass makes Thor jerk.

“Too rough?” Loki whispers. “I can get silk.”

Thor shakes his head no and his eyes fall closed.

“It's... louder and brighter,” Thor says, and Loki hums in understanding.

Loki keeps his strokes slow and light, but Thor still jolts from time to time, following each of his involuntary reactions with reassurances - it's all right and it doesn't hurt.

Loki is initially worried that these are lies, but then he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. Thor's erection lends weight to Thor's assertion that he is in no pain. Merely unaccustomed to touch.

Thor is so slim that his proportions have altered drastically. His arms, back, and chest used to dwarf the rest of him, but now he looks like a lad that's just left adolescence, all bones and baby fat. Only the wrinkles at the edges of his eyes and his smile give away his age.

Loki finishes Thor's feet and grabs a fresh flannel to wipe Thor's hair.

Loki chuckles.

“What?” Thor says.

“I'm never going to let you get this thin again, so I'm afraid your cock is never going to look this big again. You'd better have a look at it while it lasts.”

Thor rolls his eyes as Loki tips his head up.

“Go on,” Loki purrs, teasing gently. “Have a peek. I promise you'll regret it if you don't.”

“Loki,” Thor grumbles.

“Honestly, Thor, you might never forgive me for it.”

Thor sighs and lowers his eyes, then widens them and shakes with laughter.

Loki wasn't joking. It seems Thor's penis is the only part of him that hasn't shrunk.

Loki wrings the last of the oil from Thor's locks and rises to turn down the bed.

“Ready?” Loki murmurs and Thor nods.

Loki squats to lift his brother and then carefully sets him on the mattress.

“All right?” Loki asks.

“Aye,” Thor breathes, and then hums a happy sound.

“Sheets and furs? Or is the air enough?”

“I'll try a sheet,” Thor says. “I like to feel as though something's holding onto me.”

Loki's face falls. He tucks Thor in, snuffs out the candle by the door, and then climbs into bed beside his brother and rests one cool palm on Thor's shoulder to anchor them both as they sleep.

Weeks pass in a blur of eating and napping.

Thor didn't sleep while he was in space, afraid his grip on the hammer would slip and he'd be lost, so he can't get enough of the stuff now that it's safe.

His strength returns in slow stages, but he's still thinner and paler than Loki.

Light is gradually reintroduced to Thor's eyes, and, once they've adjusted to it, Loki takes Thor out on the balcony to let the sun warm his skin. He sets Thor on a heap of pillows and blankets and Thor falls asleep almost instantly.

Loki holds Thor's hand and watches his brother's ribs and belly rise with each breath. Two hours pass so swiftly Loki would swear they were mere minutes. Time only drags its heels when you're waiting for something. Once you have it, the fickle stuff rushes through your fingers.

When Thor wakes, it's time for supper, the bath, and bed.

Three hours before dawn, Loki is roused by strange gurgling.

Thor's stomach is growling.

“Sorry,” Thor says, when Loki leans up on an elbow.

“Don't be daft. What would you like to eat?”

“It's the middle of the night. I'm not an infant.”

“You're starved. There's no shame in it. Now what would you like?”

Thor opts for bread and fruit. Things he can eat with his fingers. He's learning to feed himself again. Loki looks on, enraptured, as Thor leans in, lips pouting and opening to receive simple pleasures from shaking hands.

Thor felt odd about it at first. Pathetic, inept, and exposed. But when he finally managed to get food into his own mouth, Loki made a strange noise in the back of his throat and wept happily for half an hour.

After that Thor minded less and less.

Even if Thor fumbles a grape a dozen times before he gets the thing between his teeth, Loki's eyes are bright and his lip is bitten, and when Thor finally succeeds, Loki's smile wrings the tears from his eyes. And then they do it again.

At the moment, Thor can manage about twelve successful bites and sixty failures.

When Thor's arms are finally too tired to try anymore, Loki takes the bunch of grapes, plucks them, and sets them on Thor's tongue. His fingertip and thumb brush the tips of the teeth and fullness of the lips as they retreat so that Thor can chew.

And when Thor's jaw gets too tired to chomp, Loki casts spells to make the food melt in Thor's mouth.

Thor does his best with the exercises Loki makes him do from the safety of the mattress; motions reminiscent of swimming.

The exertion makes Thor grunt like an animal, but Loki seems not to notice. His sharp eyes are measuring every millimeter of progress in Thor's strength and flexibility.

Soon Thor is to the point where he can take hot baths without feeling like he's being scalded.

Nothing has ever seemed quite so much like a luxury to him before.

Warm water, rose oil, and ease of motion.

Loki's hands moving carefully over him.

It makes Thor think of his mother.

Touch that can't be called possessive because it has always had a claim and springs only from care.

Birthright and brotherhood.

There is no soul now living to whom Thor more completely belongs than the pale god who is currently scrubbing his shoulders.

In bed, Thor rolls onto his side and then tips over, half on top of his brother. He wraps his arm around Loki's middle.

“All right?” Loki says, softly.

“Don't want you to feel like you might float away,” Thor murmurs, as his lips drag across Loki's collarbone.

Thor's time between the stars granted him insight into what his brother endured when he dropped from the Bifrost.

Cold, silence, solitude, and uncertainty.

He would wish such a fate on no one.

In the morning Loki finds himself alone.

“Thor?” Loki calls, but the bedroom is empty.

So is the bath.

Mjolnir is still on the floor.

Loki rides out to the Bifrost.

“Where is he?” Loki asks.

“In the woods,” Heimdall says.

“He walked?” Loki gasps.

“He flew.”

Loki's forehead crumples.

“Mjolnir is still in my room,” Loki says.

Heimdall offers only one shrug of his eyebrows in answer.

Thor can't resist. He can't explain why. He has felt a tug. Constant for the last ninety years.

He thought it was merely Asgard, but even from Loki's bedroom the bank by the stream in the woods has called Thor's name all night and day.

He knows she won't be there, but he hopes she will anyway.

Hopes he made a mistake.

Hopes he kept her safe here somehow, a secret from even himself.

But of course he didn't.

The forest, stream, and cave are empty.

Thor wonders if he must count himself a murderer from here on.

The realms don't feel wrong, but he won't assume that that means they're right.

Still, the moss is springy and fragrant beneath his bare feet. The rosy light of dawn no longer burns his eyes. The songs of birds don't spook him and fray his nerves.

He lies down on his back and watches the sky brighten between the tree branches above him, veins of light breaking up the darkness.

He falls asleep.

When he wakes he hears soft breathing beside him and his dreaming mind can't stop his mouth in time to hide its hope.

“Mother?” Thor murmurs, and tips his head.

But it's Loki, shaking his head sadly on the soft ground beside him.

“No. Sorry,” Loki says, and they lie leaking tears and waiting for their minds to wake. “It's always worst in the morning, when I haven't yet remembered where I stand. Where I am. When I am.”

Thor nods.

“What did you do in these woods that summer?” Loki asks.

“I spent time with her. Same as you.”

“What did you talk about?”

Thor's brow rumples and he looks at Loki as if Loki has just grown actual horns.

“We didn't,” Thor says.

“What?”

“We didn't talk. She always knew everything – there was nothing to say. Was that what you did? Talk?”

“Aye,” Loki admits. “I tried to trick some answers out of her. Blood from a stone. Stupid of me. I had all of spring and summer and I wasted them.”

Thor remembers nights that fell over a millennium ago, when treats were brought to the brothers before bed.

Loki would always pick apart his desserts to see how they were made, ruining them. Wearing most of them. Thor would wipe the sticky mess of sweets from his brother's chubby toddler fingers, and then Thor would split his own dainty with his little brother to show him what it was meant for, not wanting Loki to miss out on the pleasure of the thing.

“Would you like to see?” Thor asks, quietly.

They used to do this all the time, but Loki stopped about three hundred years ago. He wouldn't say why, but now Thor can guess.

Loki would speak a spell to join their minds and they'd lie side by side sharing memories. It was helpful when Thor had seen seidr that he didn't understand, or when Loki had gone ahead to scout in battle and could then relay everything he saw to Thor with perfect accuracy.

But there was always a degree of overflow. The thoughts and memories never poured just one way. Eventually, Loki had secrets he was too afraid to spill, so he stopped letting Thor into his head.

“Are you certain?” Loki asks.

“Aye,” Thor says, and Loki links their minds.

Thor can feel his brother dipping into his thoughts, like a butterfly sipping nectar.

It's foreign and familiar.

Thor makes it easy for Loki and recalls that first day in the woods.

Loki's focus aligns with his brother's and they begin.

Sometimes they double back when Loki wants to linger on something.

And Loki never rushes.

When they reach the last day, Loki goes over it three times.

Loki sees the trees above and sees his mother through his brother's eyes.

Frigga lays lilies of the valley around Thor in a circle.

Perennial... for return, Loki realizes. She was making sure you'd get back home.

Then she takes yellow lilies and swipes a fingertip over the anthers to pick up pollen.

Yellow for joy.

Frigga uses the sticky powder to write runes on Thor's skin.

Thor still had some on his neck when he left to destroy the stones. Loki had wondered what the gold pigment was.

This is seidr that Loki has never seen before; Frigga is still teaching him.

Thor is watching his mother's fingers when he can see them, or closing his eyes to let him feel her her designs more clearly.

It's the most intimate act Loki has ever seen his mother performing.

She goes over every inch of Thor with magic meant to bind him both to himself and to his hammer, all the while painting him with happiness.

Loki can't get over it.

Frigga touches Thor without a second's hesitation.

Because Thor belongs to her, Loki realizes. She made him.

She gets to the base of Thor's belly and shows no signs of stopping.

“If some poor hunter blunders in now, there will be worse than a scandal,” Frigga says, eyes wet with amusement.

“No,” Thor murmurs. “We'd be safe - he'd die of shock.”

Frigga starts shaking with laughter and has to pause in her spellwork.

When she gets to Thor's toes she tells him to flip over so she can do his back.

Thor is disappointed that he won't be able to watch her as she works. Instead he stares at the insects that make their way across the moss under his chin and lets his skin soak up the swirling drag of his mother's fingertips. When she threads her fingers through his hair to do his scalp, Thor hums.

Once Frigga is finished, she opens the other basket and pulls out the picnic she packed. There are quite a few of Idunn's apples, but there's cold meat, wine, bread, cheese, and grapes. Thor could smell them all, and they taste wonderful after his months of fasting.

They eat lazily, tossing grapes at each other's heads and catching them between their teeth.

And Loki tumbles into Thor's other memories of Frigga alongside his brother. Each recollection sets off another association like a landslide.

And suddenly Thor has become even more precious to Loki. His body resembles Frigga from their shared blood, which brings Loki immeasurable joy on its own, but Thor's mind houses a library of memories of their mother that Loki lacks, and never even dreamt of. She is, somehow, a different person here, and Loki wants to know his brother's version of their mother.

Loki hopes he'll be invited back in as he finally reels himself out of his brother's head.

They lie blinking in the dark until Loki casts little lights of seidr to let them see.

They're both covered with bird shit, sap, and fallen leaves, having drifted together for weeks through months of memories.

“Fuck,” Loki breathes, and climbs to his feet. “I need to get you home and feed you up. Stupid of me. You're still unwell.”

Thor shrugs and Loki helps him up.

“Hold onto me,” Thor says, and Loki does, thinking Thor is afraid of tipping over.

But it's not that.

A jet of wind comes up behind them and scoops them out of the woods, hurtling them toward the palace. Loki is certain they'll splatter on the ground like ripe fruit, but a gust bursts up beneath them and sets them gently on the balcony.

Loki has never seen his brother fly without Mjolnir.

Thor is more powerful than he's ever let on. His body is weak, but his accord with the sky is undiminished.

Loki feeds Thor a hearty stew and then dips all of Thor's fruit in cream before setting it on his tongue.

“I need to practice,” Thor argues, hands twitching in his lap as Loki does all the work.

“You can try to wash yourself,” Loki offers.

Bathing is easier than eating. The bathwater helps Thor to bear his weight, and he doesn't have to linger in one place or be too precise. Holding up his arms to wash his hair is the only hard part, and Loki helps him with that.

“Was it always that way between you?” Loki murmurs, later, as they lie awake in bed.

“What way?” Thor asks.

“So... informal. Playful.”

“Aye.”

“A wave of your fingers and the queen of Asgard strips and steps into the stream.”

“Not the queen of Asgard,” Thor corrects. “Mother.”

“I was a fool,” Loki whispers, almost to himself. “I treated her as a queen and a mentor so often once I was grown... and my last words to her... even though she knew what they would be.”

“She knew you loved her,” Thor soothes.

“Show me the end-”

“Loki-”

“I owe it to her.”

Thor frowns and stares at the ceiling but finally nods his head.

Loki links their minds again.

He sees Kurse.

See's Frigga fall.

Sees what Thor did to Malekith's face and wants to kiss his brother.

But when he saw Kurse, Loki remembered offering the monster directions out of the dungeon, and the memory flashed through Thor's mind, too.

“You told him where to go,” Thor murmurs, once their thoughts are severed.

And this is unforgivable.

Loki knows that much.

He waits, with wide wet eyes, for Thor to leave him.

Or murder him.

“I suppose it makes sense,” Thor says, finally. “You were in Asgard's prison... Asgard's enemy was as much your ally as anyone. And, anyway, his actions were his own... and Malekith's.

Loki lies blinking away tears for ten minutes, then takes Thor's hand and kisses it.

“Who knows you're alive?” Thor asks

“You, Heimdall, Sif, and Jane,” Loki answers, and then winces.

Jane is dead. He will never get used to Thor's mortals and their tiny lifespans.

“What did Jane say when she saw you?”

“Here,” Loki says. “See for yourself.

Thor watches as Jane slaps Loki again. Insults him.

Fearless.

Loki asks her about the stars.

She is not pleased with what Thor has done. She understands the implications instantly and explains them explicitly.

And then Loki offers her an apple.

“A gift from a witch,” Jane asks, with eyebrows aloft. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What are you talking about?” Loki sighs.

“This is where everything always goes wrong in our fairy tales,” Jane says.

“If you eat this, you'll live long enough to see him again.”

“And I'll watch all my friends die,” she finishes.

“Yes.”

“I think I'll pass... but thanks, I guess.”

Thor's laughter pulls them from their minds.

“Would you like to see your friends?” Loki asks, and Thor nods.

In the morning, Loki gets Thor dressed for the first time since he's been back. Just a simple silk tunic and trousers.

It occurs to Thor that he much prefers being naked.

“Bed or a chair?” Loki asks.

“Bed,” Thor sighs. “If they wish to visit for more than an hour I'll end up sliding out of a chair. Can't slide out of bed.”

“Indeed,” Loki agrees, and props Thor up with pillows before leaving to fetch their guests.

He slips into Odin's glamour and seeks Sif on the throne.

He tells her that Thor is home and whole and wishes to see his friends.

She weeps and covers her trembling smile with her hand.

“What is your counsel,” Loki says. “Shall I reveal myself to them, or remain in Odin's image?”

“They will keep your secret,” she says. “And Thor would likely prefer to avoid deception.”

Loki nods.

“Come to my old room when you're ready. He's up, but he tires easily. He'll try to hide it. I'll give you a sign when he needs to rest.”

Sif nods and rushes off to find her friends.

Hogun is home on Vanaheim, but Fandral and Volstagg are here and eager to see Thor again.

They arrive out of breath, having ridden to the palace and then sprinted through the halls.

Thor grins and returns their embraces as best he can.

They drag chairs up to the bedside and tell him what he's missed: Fandral's endless affairs, milestones for Volstagg's children, and Sif's work with Loki to repair and protect the realms.

Loki keeps to the background until he catches Thor's shoulders sagging and his head nodding. He taps Sif's toes with his own.

“You've missed enough meals,” she says, squeezing Thor's knee as she rises. “We'll not keep you from your lunch. If there is aught we can do for you, do not hesitate to ask.”

Fandral and Volstagg express their agreement and bid Thor affectionate farewells.

Thor is struggling out of his tunic the second the door shuts.

Loki huffs a laugh and comes to help him.

“Are they uncomfortable?” Loki asks, slipping the shirt over his brother's head, setting Thor's hair in disarray.

“Not exactly. It's just... I was dressed for ninety years,” Thor says, and Loki nods and fixes Thor's hair while Thor shucks off his trousers.

“Does this mean we have a century of nudity to look forward to from you?”

“Possibly,” Thor smiles, and Loki snorts.

Thor naps while Loki heads off to fetch their lunch.

Loki is somber the rest of the day.

“Did someone say something to you?” Thor asks, as they settle into bed for the night.

“Hmm? About what?” Loki says.

“I don't know. You've been unhappy since our friends left.”

Loki doesn't bother to correct our to your, which Thor appreciates.

“No. No one said anything,” Loki answers. “It's only my own thoughts, as ever.”

“What thoughts?” Thor murmurs.

“They're awful, Thor. They don't deserve utterance.”

Thor rolls over and takes Loki's arm.

“Don't let them fester in your head,” Thor says. “Spit them out.”

Loki supposes it makes no difference. He'll muck everything up one way or another, sooner or later. At least this way there's no collateral damage.

“You'll be well soon,” Loki whispers, and Thor waits. “And it's what I've wanted. But once you're mended I'll lose this. You'll leave me.”

“And where will I go?” Thor asks, softly.

“Off with Sif,” Loki says.

“Why not off with you?”

Loki has no answer.

“Do you not think I missed you?” Thor asks. “Do you not believe I enjoy this – being the sole focus of your attention? Drinking in your affection. Did you think three bad years were enough to spoil over a thousand years of joy?”

“Well... yes. You spent nearly a century starving and freezing to clean up a mess of my making.”

“While you brought peace to the realms.”

“Only because I'm selfish. I wanted Heimdall's gaze trained on you. Wanted a realm for you to return to.”

“That was for my benefit,” Thor points out. “How is that selfish of you?”

“Because your benefit is my benefit – it's what I want.”

“Sounds like generosity to me,” Thor teases, poking Loki's flank, and Loki huffs.

 

In the morning Loki sneaks off to Midgard to steal fruit from Whole Foods. Thor likes mangoes, bananas, and avocados, none of which grow on Asgard. At least, not yet.

Loki sees everyone going about their business, oblivious to the fact that, for months, they had ceased to move forward. That their lives had been reversed and rewritten.

They don't know how much they lost and how much worse it could have been.

They owe their lives to a strange blond god they have long ceased to worship.

Someone should worship him, Loki muses.

Thor endured ninety years of agony.

Loki will give him a century of bliss.

And if that century seems to linger, well, Loki can easily dismiss it as habit. And, anyway, he doubts Thor will complain.

When Loki sets breakfast on the table he hears a low pleased Oooooo issue from the pile of quilts and furs on his bed.

It takes him a moment to find Thor's face among all the folds.

“Are you cold?” Loki asks, concerned, for the day is quite comfortable.

“No,” Thor yawns. “I'm hiding my erection.”

“Well done,” Loki laughs.

Thor chuckles and climbs carefully out of bed.

And he does have an erection, but it's morning, and this is the routine.

Loki lets Thor hunch over the table, propped up on his elbows. Thor positions himself over the large plate Loki has prepared for him. It's been charmed to catch whatever food Thor drops rather than bouncing it into Thor's lap or onto the floor.

Thor eats as much as he can manage and then sits back in his chair while Loki helps him with the rest.

When Loki slides the last slice of mango between Thor's lips, Thor darts his head forward slightly and catches Loki's finger between his teeth, then licks the juice from the pad of Loki's fingertip.

Loki's mouth falls open slightly and his eyes linger on the point at which his body disappears into his brother's.

Thor hears a hitch in Loki's breath and sees a quick twitch as Loki's nostrils flare.

Loki shakes himself and withdraws his hand.

He helps Thor into the bathroom to wash up for the day.

“I thought we might go to the sea,” Loki says, and takes Thor's arm after Thor veers out onto the balcony.

“Tomorrow,” Thor says. “Today it's going to rain.”

There isn't a cloud in the sky.

“I'll take your word for it,” Loki murmurs, staring up into endless blue.

Thor turns, drapes his arms around Loki's neck, and lets his forehead sag against his brother's.

“If we dance in a circle out here, we won't be far from a chair when I tire, but my legs will still get plenty of exercise,” Thor says.

Loki hums and nods.

They begin well enough, each standing up straight, taking all the proper positions, and keeping the time.

As they go on, Thor slows, so Loki matches him.

When Thor's arms tire they find their way back around Loki's neck.

Loki's arms loop around Thor's waist to help hold him up.

Soon they're just swaying together while steady rain falls.

The scents of stone, earth, rooftops, and wet skin reach Loki's nose.

Thor has his face tucked behind Loki's ear and he's filtering the world through Loki's hair: Loki and rain, Loki and grass, Loki and wind, Loki and roses. Thor prefers the realm this way.

When one of Thor's knees buckles, Loki leads him back inside.

They dry off and climb into bed for their customary pre-lunch nap.

But Thor's eyes are bright and the storm is growing stronger.

“Are you well?” Loki asks, and Thor smiles.

“Aye.”

Thor's front is pressed to Loki's side.

“Come here,” Thor murmurs.

Loki blinks and cocks an eyebrow.

“I'm already here,” Loki notes, but Thor shakes his head no.

“You're still too far away,” Thor says, because eighty-one light-years and eighty-one millimeters amount to the same thing: distance.

Thor is done with it.

Loki rolls over to face his brother and opens his mouth to speak, but Thor leans forward and seals his lips over Loki's before Loki can say a word.

Loki tastes sweet and his lips are soft. Thor licks past them and feels Loki's breath puff out against his cheek. He sucks Loki's tongue and feels Loki's fingers tighten on his hip. Does it again and feels Loki's cock press into his belly.

It's like drinking wine.

It makes them warm and languid. Loosens their limbs. Puts them at ease.

Loki helps Thor onto his back and settles above him, pressing kisses into Thor's waiting mouth and rocking their hips together gently.

Thor moans and his hips thrust helplessly.

And Loki realizes Thor hasn't come in decades.

Loki pulls back and Thor shakes his head no.

“Don't stop kissing me,” Thor begs.

“I won't,” Loki soothes, and sets his lips to the bend of Thor's jaw.

Then the muscles in the neck, pausing to suck the apple of the throat.

It makes Thor arch and groan, and Loki loves it.

Thor feels his brother's lips over his heart and it leaves him panting.

The lower Loki's kisses go, the shorter the brothers' breaths get.

When Loki's lips spread around the head of Thor's cock, it sets Thor shaking.

Wild and helpless sounds slip past Thor's lips and only serve to urge Loki on; he slides his lips from base to tip while Thor writhes beneath him and begs him with sighs.

Thor gasps Loki's name as he fills Loki's mouth with come and Loki decides that that was the first time his name has been properly pronounced, and he doesn't want to hear it said any other way ever after.

“Come here,” Thor says again, for he still wants Loki's kisses.

Loki climbs up his brother's spent body sets their lips together. Thor teases his way inside with tiny nips and licks, and tastes his semen on Loki's tongue.

To find himself within his brother opens something for Thor. Answers all his questions.

He wants Loki to taste this, too.

Thor urges Loki up the mattress with soft taps to Loki's flanks - the best Thor's tired limbs can manage, but Loki knows his brother's body language.

Loki climbs farther up the bed and spreads his legs wide above Thor's shoulders. He feels the hot gust of air against his belly when Thor breathes brother.

Loki holds the base of his own cock and aims it down so Thor doesn't choke, then strokes himself slowly while Thor sucks and laves the head.

Thor hums around Loki's prick as it inches past his lips. His mouth moves hungrily. He wants to drink Loki's seed. To drown in Loki's pleasure.

Loki lets them both linger in this for as long as he's able. He keeps his motions slow and focuses on the silky drag of Thor's tongue and the squeezing of Thor's lips.

But it quickly becomes too much.

Thor's tongue is swirling and relentless and so smooth.

Loki's hand moves frantically and he comes with a cry while Thor moans and hot semen fills his mouth.

They both lie still, wanting to feel Loki's cock going soft where it's held between Thor's lips.

When they're in danger of nodding off, Loki swings his leg over Thor's chest and shuffles back down the bed, pulling Thor up against him, face to face once more.

Thor doesn't have to ask again: Loki leans in for kisses and tastes himself inside his brother.

When Thor's stomach growls, Loki climbs out of bed and brings the platter back with him, feeding Thor nutmeats and slivers of apple.

“Shall I not try to feed myself?” Thor asks.

Loki shakes is head no.

“You've had enough exercise today,” Loki murmurs, and Thor snorts.

The patter of rain lulls them to sleep as they lie in a tangle of pale limbs.

It's still raining in the morning, but they go to the sea all the same.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Please pretend commenting is disabled, and please don't repost or distribute my work.


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